Adam has the unwelcome gift of being able to look into a person's eyes and see exactly what date and how they will die. When he sees too many people with the death date of 01012027, he decides to go public. His story alternates chapters with a second narrator, Sarah, an abused girl pregnant with her father's child who sees the future in terrifyingly detailed dreams. Ward delicately weaves the threads of their futures together with love, fear, and guilt. Although not as artfully composed as the first title, Numbers (2010), this sequel again delivers an action-driven plot with a thoughtful meditation on the nature of prescience.

Adam (Numbers), who can sense on what date people will die, alarmingly foresees thousands of deaths on "01012027." Meanwhile, he fights his growing attraction to Sarah, who has prophetic nightmares about him. Poignant characters balance gritty street talk and a tough demeanor against their tender and conscientious impulses. Readers propelled by the story's driving action will be gratified by the surprising resolution.

Gr 8 Up-This sequel to Num8ers (Scholastic, 2010) doesn't disappoint. Fifteen-year-old Adam, the son of Jem and her lover for too brief a time, Spider, has inherited his mother's ability to see peoples' death dates in their eyes. Unfortunately, the loss of Jem to cancer causes him to retreat into isolation and rage. Things only get worse when his father's grandmother brings him back to her London flat and enrolls him in school where he begins to notice that almost everyone he meets has the same death date-01012027, which is only six months away. Then he meets Sarah, sensitive, artistic, and pregnant, who is fighting her own demons. Together they must learn to trust and heal and, hopefully, survive the inevitable cataclysm. The Chaos is every bit as good as the first novel in the trilogy. The premise of unavoidable disaster is chillingly plausible as Ward incorporates elements of global warming and increasing seismic activity-which hits just a bit too close to home given the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK